For a split second, scientists at CERN have successfully reached a long-held dream of medieval mystics to turn lead into gold.
The Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator was behind this historical breakthrough. It stretches across 17 miles in a tunnel located below the French-Swiss border. The team of researchers actually created gold atoms with 79 protons by removing 3 protons from the nuclei of the atoms of lead.
Even medieval scientists knew that gold and lead have similar densities and were thinking about the possibility of turning lead into gold. Several centuries of experimentation, however, showed that such experiments were pointless. In short, from a purely chemical standpoint, gold and lead are entirely different elements and can’t be transformed into each other without changing the atomic structure.
However, if we turn to nuclear physics, things look much more optimistic. Specifically, it has demonstrated that transforming one element into another, either in a natural way through radioactive decay or artificially by bombarding the substance with neutrons or protons, is not too-out-there, but it’s actually quite real. The team of scientists used the latter method to bring about the most coveted chemical transformation alchemists could only dream of.
Unfortunately, the practical application is still very questionable. Only 86 billion gold nuclei, or 29 picograms, were produced as the result of this experiment. That is a minuscule, practically negligible amount, which is trillions of times smaller than what you would need to make a single piece of jewelry. Thus, despite the fact that the yellow metal was technically created in a lab, you won’t soon see it being used in gold bars, bracelets, earrings, or any pieces for that matter.
In its official announcement, the CERN stated that “the alchemical dream has technically come true, but the promise of unimaginable wealth is still very unattainable.” The scientists stressed that while the experiment was successful, it was only done on an extremely small scale and for a fraction of a second. Even so, this is undoubtedly a phenomenal event in atomic studies since it showed that we can manipulate matter at its most basic level.
CERN is reimagining what science is capable of by reconfiguring atomic nuclei. Remarkably, this is a meeting point of modern research and medieval pseudoscience. What many thought to be a myth turned out to be possible, after all. Just don’t expect to become wealthy overnight with this method: the costs of equipment, energy, and expertise required for such an experiment actually outweigh the value of the gold produced by thousands of times.
